Queercommie Girl
11th July 2010, 17:19
I don't think every branch of what is usually considered to be philosophy is useful, but I'd say that philosophy of science is a branch that actually is useful in many ways and to a significant extent the philosophy of science is dialectical. The Philosophy of Science studies the historical development of scientific knowledge, the philosophical implications of scientific theories and technology, the social and ethical dimensions of scientific research, as well as the nature of scientific enquiry and the source of scientific knowledge itself. It therefore covers a wide range of subjects from social science, history and ethics to logic and epistemology.
The best example of contemporary Philosophy of Science is probably Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". His analysis of the history of scientific progress is an example of the dialectical principle of "quantity into quality", and really runs parallel to Marx's analysis of the history of social revolutions. The basic idea is that scientific theories exist as "paradigms" underpinned by certain "exemplars". As long as the changes in observational and experimental evidence are within certain limits, the underlying paradigm itself does not change. If however, new evidence comes along which shakes the old paradigm to its foundations, then a scientific revolution occurs and the old paradigm is replaced by a fundamentally different new paradigm. The experiment or observation that served to overthrow the old paradigm then becomes the new exemplar of the new paradigm. An example is Newtonian mechanics being replaced by Einsteinian relativity. There were many new breakthroughs in physics in the 19th century, with for instance the discovery of electro-magnetic waves. But none of these were sufficient to fundamentally challenge the old Newtonian system, until the experiment that proved the non-existence of the ether and the relativity of space and time, which could no longer be contained within the old framework.
It shows that scientific and social revolutions operate along similar lines. It also fits in well with Mao's idea that socialist revolution consists of 3 major parts: class struggle, productivity advance and scientific research.
The scientific process itself can also be considered dialectical as the interaction between theory/hypothesis and practice/observation, with practice/observation playing the part of the "base" and theory/hypothesis playing the part of "superstructure".
At university I majored in the History and Philosophy of Science, I find that there are many philosophical similarities between certain schools of the philosophy of science and Marxism.
What do you think?
The best example of contemporary Philosophy of Science is probably Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". His analysis of the history of scientific progress is an example of the dialectical principle of "quantity into quality", and really runs parallel to Marx's analysis of the history of social revolutions. The basic idea is that scientific theories exist as "paradigms" underpinned by certain "exemplars". As long as the changes in observational and experimental evidence are within certain limits, the underlying paradigm itself does not change. If however, new evidence comes along which shakes the old paradigm to its foundations, then a scientific revolution occurs and the old paradigm is replaced by a fundamentally different new paradigm. The experiment or observation that served to overthrow the old paradigm then becomes the new exemplar of the new paradigm. An example is Newtonian mechanics being replaced by Einsteinian relativity. There were many new breakthroughs in physics in the 19th century, with for instance the discovery of electro-magnetic waves. But none of these were sufficient to fundamentally challenge the old Newtonian system, until the experiment that proved the non-existence of the ether and the relativity of space and time, which could no longer be contained within the old framework.
It shows that scientific and social revolutions operate along similar lines. It also fits in well with Mao's idea that socialist revolution consists of 3 major parts: class struggle, productivity advance and scientific research.
The scientific process itself can also be considered dialectical as the interaction between theory/hypothesis and practice/observation, with practice/observation playing the part of the "base" and theory/hypothesis playing the part of "superstructure".
At university I majored in the History and Philosophy of Science, I find that there are many philosophical similarities between certain schools of the philosophy of science and Marxism.
What do you think?